|
|
|
|
|
|
by rangestransform
212 days ago
|
|
|
Cities only exist because of economies of scale! Public transit, road maintenance, utilities delivery, public recreation facilities, and the plethora of small and large businesses are more efficient in a city because of economies of scale. What people don’t benefit from is laws to artificially benefit small businesses at the expense of the consumer. Here in New York, we have this stupid law that one corporate entity can only have one liquor retail license. This law was created at the “behest” of the lobby of liquor store owners. The end result of this is that liquor is more expensive than my hometown of Vancouver, despite NYS collecting a significantly lower tax rate than BC province. That money all flew into private coffers, and the consumer still gets bent over in the end. I also take issue with the implication that Walmart incurring policing costs is bad for society. The implication is that Walmart should either have private police or be a shoplifting free for all. The former is a bad idea because Walmart police don’t have the same responsibility or accountability to the public as public police. The latter is a bad idea because society will collapse without property rights. |
|
|
Sure if you want to have an intellectual debate about what the economics of scale means then that's fine but your point about economics of scale about suburban super-markets was still wrong and that was the context of my critic.
The rest of your post is irrelevant to my point. I have not advocated for any policy specifically to help small business. Small shops in cities can and are operate by major cooperation. There is no contradiction between large companies and small/urban locations. Not sure why you are even bringing this up. Are you so 'America'-brained that you think large companies can only exist in large commercial zones right of highway exchanges?
> I also take issue with the implication that Walmart incurring policing costs is bad for society.
I didn't say the issue is that its incurring policing cost, I said the cost it incurs is higher then the taxes its paying. The whole point of taxes is that they finance the operation of a geographical area. And everybody living or operating in that area should help finance that area.
If somebody operates in that area that incurs more cost then benefits then that somebody should only continue to be doing so if people consider it a 'social good'. And supporting Wallmart a highly profitable company, clearly doesn't fall under that.
So designing policies so that a multi-billion $ company can show up and extract value from your town is nonsensically stupid.
In fact you are stealing from other business and people in your area to give more profits to wallmart.
> The implication is that Walmart should either have private police or be a shoplifting free for all.
No 'the implication' is that when a community does land use, infrastructure and tax planning it should consider facts, and consider cost to provide services and infrastructure for to those areas.
The fact is, most communities make most of their money in the 'down town' that is true even for very small town and even villages.
What you are proposing is basically that a community should finance, build and maintain a lot of public infrastructure, then finance continue police and other services far away from where most people actually live to protect cooperate property (and specifically the parking lot) all while Wallmart does everything in its power to pay the absolute minimum back to the community it is in. Both by local tricks and by tricks on a federal level.